Frisian Place-Names in England

Extract

Mr. H. M. Chadwick departs from current views about the early settlers of Great Britain and challenges Bede's long-accepted classification of them as Angles, Saxons, and Jutes. He believes them to have been a homogeneous people, their dialectic differences having come about after the immigration and through political and geographical influences. He opposes the prevailing notion that the Anglo-Saxon organization at the time of the migration was “tribal,” and thinks that the invasion was accomplished by large organized bands, not by small groups of adventurers acting independently. The migration of the Angli Mr. Chadwick regards as exceptional. Although there was no external pressure, it was on a large scale and extended over a considerable space of time. And, he says, according to the constitution of military forces of the time, the warriors required to make up the forces of invasion were not all drawn from within the territories of the Angli, but came, many of them, from the surrounding regions.